Beyond the Veil
by MysticJadeShoe
Summary: Where will Sirius go after he falls through the veil?  A Very Potter Musical fans only, please!


**This is something I had written a while ago and was extremely proud of. Re-discovered it today and realized AAHHH THIS WAS MY ONE GREAT IDEA! Don't read if you haven't finished Order of the Phoenix or A Very Potter Musical...you have been warned...now enjoy!**

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It was similar to a dream.

I felt myself fall backwards as Bellatrix's spell hit me. I knew what was coming. And yet...I didn't stop myself. I can't figure for the life of me why; maybe it was my pride and arrogance as a young wizard. Maybe I wanted it all to end.

I saw the curtains flap high after I fell through. I heard Harry yelling, scared, "Sirius! Sirius!"

I tried to yell back, but it was like my throat had a large wad of cotton stuffed down it - I couldn't reply. Harry's feet thumped as he ran down the dais and tried to fetch me from the curtain.

"There's nothing you can do, Harry -" I heard Lupin yell.

"Get him! Save him! He's only just gone through!"

"It's too late, Harry -"

"We can still reach him!"

"There's nothing you can do, Harry. Nothing. He's gone."

It really hit me then. I was...gone. Dead.

Is this what it's like to die? I thought.

"He hasn't gone!" Harry yelled. He clearly didn't believe it. And, if I knew Harry, he wouldn't believe it. "Sirius! SIRIUS!"

I struggled again, trying to reach him. I felt paralyzed; there was nothing I could do.

"He can't come back, Harry!" Lupin said...and...I heard his voice breaking. "He can't come back - because he's d -"

"HE - IS - NOT - DEAD!" Harry retorted. "SIRIUS!"

Tears were running down my face at this point as I coninued to fall. I needed to get to Harry. And I knew I couldn't. I had failed James in my duties as a friend...as a godfather to his son.

I heard a scuffling noise. Lupin must be dragging him away, I thought.

I could no longer hear anything from the other world, or anything at all. My eyes roved the multicolored tunnel of light I was falling through trying to find something, anything...

THUD!

I hit the hard ground, red dust coming up around me in large clouds. Coughing, I looked up and around the new place, desperately hoping (because of the red dust) that I had not just landed myself a place in hell with dear old mum.

I looked right into a lion's face.

"Aah!" I fell flat on my back.

And what happened next I did not anticipate.

The lion grinned at me, broadly. My first thought was that I had run into an Animagus who knew who I was and was going to turn me in to the Ministry.

But then something ELSE I didn't anticipate happened.

"Welcome to Pigfarts!"

Confusion scribbled across my mind for a split second. Then I remembered, back at Hogwarts...

"Pigfarts is the ONLY school to go to," Lucius Malfoy would airily say, spinning a graceful pirouette. "And you can't just GO there. It's on -"

"Mars?" I asked blankly. "I'm on Mars?"

The lion - Rumbleroar, I remembered - nodded. "And it seems you have fallen through the veil, oh, my - did anyone tell you it's a direct portkey to Pigfarts?"

I now remembered a jerking sensation behind my navel as soon as I touched the curtains, but I had thought it was because of panic. "Uh, no," I said, truthfully.

"We must get you a rocketship back," said Rumbleroar, "as this was entirely an accident. Oh, my, I imagine people now think you're dead..."

Harry's screams and Remus' voice breaking now pummeled themselves into my head. I needed to get back, tell them I was fine -

"Come. We need to get your permission slip for a rocketship in."

Forcing my attention away from the sky, I followed Rumbleroar into a small, dusty shack. At first, I thought that Pigfarts didn't have much to boast for; we were walking down a rather dusty, dry set of stairs that were carved into the rock.

Then I saw the main hall.

It was the biggest thing I had seen in my entire life.

It was lavishly decorated with butterbeer corks painted red and enchanted to illuminate at given intervals. The six tables had long, scarlet tablecloths draped over them. There were students everywhere and a rack of spacesuits along the wall. I noticed a table of adults - could these be the teachers?

"Wow," I breathed. Mars looked pretty dang cool. No wonder Lucius had always wanted to come here.

As soon as my voice had echoed around the room among the student's babble, a head at the adult table perked up. My eyes widened - I really hoped Rumbleroar knew I was innocent...

The head was covered in messy, jet-black hair; the man turned his head sideways. I sighted a pair of rectangular glasses, wide hazel eyes, a prominent nose. Could it be...?

He nudged the person sitting next to him - a woman with long red hair who turned to look at him; she turned her head and I saw almond-shaped green eyes.

My heart leaped into my throat. These were either very unusual coincidences or James and Lily Potter.

"P-Prongs?"

The man - James - turned around in his seat and sighted me.

"Padfoot!" he burst, whilst Lily cried simoultaneously, "Snuffles!"

James got off his chair and started running across the Hall. I felt like I was falling through the veil again; I couldn't utter a thing, or even move.

He was across the Hall faster than I knew possible for him. James slammed into me, wrapping his arms around me in a brotherly hug. Lily had dashed after him and had hugged me as well.

I sat there for a second, paralyzed, unsure of what to do. It wasn't often that I found out old school friends that had been supposedly killed by the Dark Lord were alive.

Then, shakily, I embraced the two of them, tears once again streaming down my face - but in joy this time.

* * *

"Haha, really?"

James, Lily and I had kicked back in one of the rooms just off the main Hall. He tossed me a butterbeer and I caught it, gratefully.

"You wouldn't believe it. Skinny chick, pink hair - most of the time, anyway - d'you remember Nymphadora Tonks?"

James screwed up his face in concentration; Lily, however, looked amused.

"Tonks? She was in the Order, right? Spiky, short hair, different colors depending on how she's feeling - the Metamorphmagus?"

"That's the one," I replied, nodding and cracking open the butterbeer. "Well, Moony and her have been hitting it off rather well..."

"You're kidding!" James exclaimed, eyes wide. I laughed.

"And how's Severus?" asked Lily, timidly.

"Being a butt-trumpet. Especially to Harry," I added, taking a swig of butterbeer. "Won't cut the poor kid a break."

A dreadful, guilty pang hit my insides as I thought about Harry. He still thought I was dead.

Lily was shaking her head, sadly. "I wish things didn't end the way they did between us...he was my best friend..."

I snorted, nearly causing butterbeer to shoot out my nose. The two of them stared at me, quizzically.

"Um," I spluttered, "you DO know that he had...well, a crush on you? You're the reason why he left the Death Eaters. And he doesn't think about much else than mistakes he made that drew you apart." I paused. "It's kinda creepy."

"Yeah, ol' Snivelly, he always was a tad creepy," James said, nodding. "But this is...new levels of creepy."

"I never knew," said Lily, softly. "He never told me."

"Lily, you never tell a girl you like her," James replied.

"It just makes you look like an idiot," I finished for him.

"Yes, as it did so well with you," she said coolly, looking James in the eye and smiling. "Then again, I guess your idiocy is an endearing quality..."

"Hey!"

I laughed at them both. On Mars like a fifteenth honeymoon, and they were still acting like newlyweds.

"How's Harry?" asked James, turning to me hopefully for a change of topic.

I averted his eyes. "Not well," I mumbled, looking at the floor.

Both of their eyes scanned me; I could feel it. Trying to make a distraction, I coughed.

"What's wrong with Harry?"

I sighed. "Well, he thinks I'm dead."

"But you fell through a curtain," said Lily. "How can you be dead?"

"Not just any curtain. It's in the Department of Mysteries, remember? In the Death Chamber? And Lupin thought I was dead. He convinced Harry of it, too."

James knuckled his forehead. "Moony, you beat me in the O.W.L.s, how could you do that?"

"That's not all..." I cleared my throat again, and continued. "We think he might be suspecting the Horcrux thing. He's scared to death that Voldemort is getting in his head. And he's having a spell of a time trying to date Cho Chang."

"Cho CHANG?" James repeated incredulously, eyes cracked wide as dinner plates. "Elmer Chang's kid? Please tell me you're kidding, tell me this is a huge joke and that he's dating someone like Ginny Weasley -"

"Crystal balls," Lily murmured under her breath to me as James went into a hysterical freak-out. "We can see Earth and what everyone's up to through them, they've never been for Divination after all - but we've been so caught up with the Order that we haven't been watching Harry - James, please calm down!"

"CHO CHANG! Really, Harry! I'd rather hear he wasn't dating at all!" James exclaimed.

"Come on, James, Cho's not that bad," Lily replied. "She's a good girl, she's just having a hard time since Cedric came here. Wouldn't you?"

"But with a dad like Elmer Chang," he murmured, "who knows what that girl's like...Sirius, whip him soundly for me, won't you?"

I laughed. " 'Harry, I'm afraid your dead dad has informed me to whip you. Sorry, ol' chap.' " I pantomimed whacking, and James started laughing back.

It was perfect just to have them back.

I managed to adjust my life to Mars life. In many ways, it was just like going to Hogwarts again, but on Mars and no classes to take. A lot of things changed - water was limited, so we could shower every two days, which was rather awful considering how dusty Mars is.

I had yet to get used to a lion wandering around the halls, chatting amicably with other proffessors.

Sunrise and sunset did not exist.

It occurred to me that we shouldn't be breathing in space. Lily explained it to me in a highly complicated way, meaning there was some sort of charm protecting us from space temperatures and giving us air. I didn't have to understand it; I was fine with knowing that I could stay alive here.

There were three houses at Pigfarts; Rufflebir, whose colors were razzmatazz and forest green; Diddlesay, whose colors were aquamarine and sparkling yellow; and Iglesor, whose colors were lavender and a creamy white. Don't ask me what you had to do to get accepted into one of them, the only thing I know is that James said I was definitely a Diddlesay.

I walked past a mirror one day when I realized I hadn't glimpsed my reflection since Earth. Curious, I wiped the fog off the mirror and had a look.

The difference was incredible - I looked twenty again, the lines had been erased from my face, my body was young and athletic. James and Lily still looked twenty; did Mars have an effect on age? Whatever the case, I was happy with the change, and I wasn't going to quibble.

However.

I still felt sick every time I thought of Harry - he needed me, I had to be there for him! - or Remus. I thought of getting some Floo Powder, but Lily told me there was a shortage of that too and it could only be used in emergencies. I thought, crazily, of flying on a broomstick back to him, or sending him an owl.

Obviously neither of those would work. I could watch him, which I had been doing, over the crystal ball. No comfort there - I caught him on the Hogwarts grounds, wiping tears off his face as he walked back to the Gryffindor dorms.

"Don't worry about Harry," said James, crystal ball-gazing with me. "He's seen a lot, he'll get through this."

Lily, on the other hand, looked concerned. James dismissed it as maternal instinct. Personally, I had to agree with Lily; sure, he'd lost Cedric, but I wasn't a spare, I was his godfather.

Then again, this may be just the trial to get him ready for fighting Voldemort, I thought. I sat, staring at the stars through the window. They were so close; I could have reached out and grabbed one and held it in my hand.

Ow.

It was up to Harry to save the world from Voldemort, that I knew. I had desperately wanted to tell him this, but Dumbledore deemed his poor little ears unready to hear such news; oh, he had seen too much, he would be ready later. I knew better. Harry needed to know.

I picked up my book ("Thirteen Different Ways to Comb Hippogriff Fur and Feathers", which I was reading when I got bored) and made to leave the room.

That's when I saw Regulus.

I fell off my chair.

And yet...there he was, all of him. His sleek black hair was combed away from his face, as he preferred; his angular face was angular as always, his steely grey eyes were aimed at me.

"Regulus?" I asked, rubbing my eyes to make sure there was no dust in them.

"Mm-hmm. And let me guess - you're mum."

I stared at him. He had just joked.

He glanced at me, closed his eyes, and said, "Look, Sirius. I'm sorry I was such a butthead back in school, and...well, all the time. Just...stop looking at me like that. It's kinda creepy."

"Yeah," I said, pulling myself off the floor. "Listen - what happened? How'd you die? What happened with Voldemort?"

You've all read Deathly Hallows, I presume. (If you haven't, go whip yourself now and get a copy.) You know what happened with Regulus. He explained what happened to him, all that stuff with the Death Eaters, the potion, and the locket.

"You haven't seen the best part," said Regulus, and - get this - he was smiling. He reached for his left sleeve and pulled it down.

His skin was white (due to lack of sunlight), clean, clear of any marring black ink. The Dark Mark was no longer on his arm.

"I think it has something to do with the age effects on Mars - you know, Sirius, you've no wrinkles and you look two again."

I opened my mouth to say something nasty back, but he went on. "I think it does the same for tattoos and other such marks. Nothing happens when I push where it used to be. So...I can go back to Earth with a clean slate."

I had to admit, that was really cool. And good. The fact that Regulus was getting his life straight and he now had the means to do it meant a lot.

"Well, that's good, Reggie," I said, a smile playing across my face.

Regulus turned and looked at me. "Do NOT call me Reggie. Ever. I will kill you."

" 'Kay then, Reggie." I smirked.

I spent the rest of the day running and hiding from my new brother.

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